


A Promise

by Charlynch



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 13:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17162939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlynch/pseuds/Charlynch
Summary: Very fluffy oneshot, written super quickly and not very fleshed out. Just intended as some soft content to break up writing all The Warmest Part Of You angst





	A Promise

The air smelled of a strange combination of cleaning products, sawdust and warm bodies. Becky wrinkled her nose a little.

“Hey, have a little more respect for the establishment that could be hosting our son,” Charlotte chastised, elbowing Becky in the ribs.

“Or daughter,” corrected Becky.

“Or daughter, yes,” Charlotte said, exasperated. “The point is, this is a big experience for us. We’re adopting. Our first baby, Becky!”

“It might not be a baby,” Becky reasoned. “You don’t know what’ll happen.”

Charlotte nodded again, and reached down to hold Becky’s hand tightly. Becky could tell she was nervous; she worried at the hem of her shirt with one hand, the other gripping Becky’s with tremendous force.

“You two can come through now,” said a kind-faced woman with a soft voice. “We’ll take you through the nursery first.”

The couple held their collective breath as they stepped through the door and into a room decorated in pastels. Toys littered the floor, and the air was abuzz with noise. Becky was in her element, instantly crouching down to greet the puppies with reckless abandon; they responded in kind, hurling themselves into her legs, chewing on her with needle-tipped puppy teeth, ears forward as they examined the two women.

“This is our most recent litter. Most of them out of the nine are spoken for, but there are still three left, though we’ve had a lot of interest,” advised the lady. “We do have other puppies however, if you have your heart set on a young animal.”

“I don’t really mind the age range,” Charlotte said tentatively. “It’s more about the right dog. I didn’t come here with an ideal in mind.”

“That’s totally fine, a lot of people prefer to let the pet choose them,” said the lady with a kind smile. “I’ll leave you to wander; that door on the other side of the room will take you out to the kennels where our other dogs available for adoption live. Feel free to look around.”

Charlotte nodded. Becky hadn’t heard a word; she had nine puppies climbing into her arms, chewing her hair, chasing her shoe laces. Charlotte reached out to pet them, and they eagerly leaped around her, nosing her with a friendly, inquisitive look in their eyes.

“Charlotte I want all of them,” Becky whined. “Look at them.”

“I know baby, but we gotta pick one! We haven’t even seen the others in the kennels yet,” Charlotte reminded her. “I’ll let you play with these guys a little longer. I’m gonna look around.”

Charlotte detached herself from several wriggling puppies and squeezed out of the door the woman who had shown them in had indicated. Instantly, she was struck by the sound of barking, and several more dogs of puppy age rushed to the front of their enclosure to wag their tails at her. She noted that nearly all of them had “reserved” stickers on the glass. She walked along the rows, pausing to examine each inhabitant; a dozing German Shepherd puppy with ears too big for her head, a talkative Golden Retriever mix, a strange-looking but very excitable dog of mixture of breeds she couldn’t identify. As she moved around, she paused at each enclosure to say hello and appreciate the dog inside. Eventually, she reached the very back of the kennels, and came to the last enclosure. There was a bright yellow sticker on the glass that said “please be careful! I’m nervous!”

It took Charlotte a few moments to realise the enclosure actually had a dog inside. Squished as far back as she possibly could be into a corner, was a blue-grey lump.

“Hey baby,” Charlotte said softly, crouching down below the glass to look at the resident through the cage bars. The blue-grey lump trembled. Charlotte sat down on the cold linoleum, crossing her legs and moving slightly to rest her back against the mesh. She’d read that making eye contact could be intimidating for dogs; maybe if she was still and quiet for a little while, she’d get to see the shy dog that had been tucked away out of sight.

 

Charlotte wasn’t sure how long she sat there; she heard other families pass through looking for dogs, passing by the little blue-grey dog the moment they saw the “I’m nervous” sticker. Eventually, Becky appeared with the kindly attendant.

“You’ve been gone for ages! Come on, there’s a stupid lookin’ German Shepherd puppy I want the lady to show us, I love her,” Becky said in an excited stream.

“Did you find a dog you were interested in?” the attendant asked, then let out a little noise of surprise. “Oh! I’ve never seen her approach anybody before. She’s stayed in that corner nearly constantly since she got here two years ago. Only gets up for walks and dinner.”

Charlotte just barely shifted to look behind her. Sure enough, the little blue grey dog had gotten up and taken a few cautious steps toward her, its dark eyes large and mistrustful in a sweet, anxious face. Now the dog was standing up, Charlotte could see her properly; she was a little Staffordshire Bull Terrier, with a soft blue grey coat. On her hindquarters, some of her hair was missing and instead she had shiny, smooth pink patches. She only had three legs.

“Oh baby, what happened to you?” Charlotte whispered, leaning slightly closer. The dog recoiled.

“She wound up here after her old owners thought it’d be funny to tie fireworks to her,” the attendant supplied sadly. “We saved her, but we couldn’t save the leg, and she’s never really recovered from the trauma.”

“I want to see her,” Charlotte said instantly. She looked at Becky, who nodded solemnly, clearly touched by the sad story of the anxious little dog. With so many people crowded around, the dog grew nervous and shrank back into her corner.

“You’re certainly welcome to see her, but she won’t respond to you,” the lady said, fetching a lead and opening the cage. “A lot of people have tried to reach out to her, people want to save her, but when they realise she’s unreachable, they tend to look elsewhere. She might not look it, but she’s also one of our senior residents. She’s a little dog that will need a lot of work.”

“We can do that,” Becky said, crouching down beside Charlotte, who was clearly besotted. “What’s her name?”

“We named her Buffy, as in the Vampire Slayer, the guy who was responsible for saving her was a big fan,” the attendant said with a smile.

“Buffy,” Becky tried the name out.

“That’s my baby, Becks,” Charlotte said quietly. “Buffy is the one I wanna take home.”

“We’ll let you guys see her first,” the lady offered, clipping a lead onto Buffy’s collar and leading her out to meet Becky and Charlotte. The little dog trembled and whined, resisting the pull of the leash, but after a few minutes of Becky and Charlotte’s impassive silence, she took a few tentative steps out of her enclosure. The three women seemed almost to hold their breath as they stood there in silence for what felt like an eternity.

Charlotte, remembering her thoughts earlier about avoiding eye contact so she didn’t upset Buffy, did not look at the dog, but she couldn’t help but gasp in delight when she felt a wet nose investigate the back of her knee, followed by the weight of Buffy leaning against her.

“She really has taken a shine to you!” the lady exclaimed. “She doesn’t usually let visitors touch her, and now she’s come over to touch you first.”

“She’s leanin’ on you,” Becky grinned. “I think she wants pats.”

Charlotte gently crouched down, her heart breaking at the way Buffy shied at her every movement, and reached out. Once Buffy had thoroughly investigated her hand, Charlotte carefully scratched her ears. Buffy half closed her eyes and leaned in to the touch, her silly little stump of a tail wagging hesitantly. Becky approached too, and much to the attendant’s delight, Buffy began to wave her stump with even greater fervour. Within moments, Becky was lying on the linoleum with Buffy in her arms, letting the dog lick her face and scrabble at her with enthusiastic paws.

“I think we’ve made our choice,” Charlotte said, smiling fondly at her girlfriend. Becky was insanely good with animals; she just had some vibe about her that they seemed to like.

“I think Buffy has too,” the lady replied. “I’ll sort you guys out and we can see how we’ll go about getting her home to you.”

 

After a home visit and a few more sessions visiting Buffy, the day had finally come for her to come home. As Charlotte and Becky brought her into the house, she slunk around their legs nervously. After realising the house was empty save for herself and her new owners, Buffy was emboldened and began to trot around in a businesslike fashion, her little tail stump held aloft.

“She’s a completely different dog,” Becky said with surprise. “I guess the shelter made her more anxious. She looks keen to explore here.”

“It’s so sweet, it’s like she knows we’re here to help,” Charlotte replied, following Buffy from room to room and watching herinvestigate. Upon reaching their bedroom, the little Staffordshire Bull Terrier immediately hopped up onto their bed and lay down with her mouth open in that traditional clownish Staffie smile. Her stump wiggled almost nervously as Charlotte came to sit beside her.

“It’s okay baby, this is your bed now too,” Charlotte told her, kicking off her shoes and sitting crosslegged.

“I thought we agreed we weren’t gonna let her in the bed?” Becky asked with a knowing grin, following suit.

“Becky have you ever known me to be able to resist the charms of a dog?”

“Point taken; Buffy has the run of the place.”

Becky flopped down onto the bed, and Buffy bustled over to snuff at her face as she lay on her back laughing. Charlotte lay down beside her, rolling onto her side to brush Becky’s hair out of her face. Nestled between them, Buffy immediately walked a small circle before lying down and curling up, her stump still wagging all the while.

“You know, when I was a little girl thinking about what it’d be like to start a family of my own,” Charlotte said. “I hadn’t ever imagined it looking like this.”

“Nah, two female wrestlers and a three legged dog is the pinnacle of nuclear family,” Becky joked. “Every little girl dreams of marryin’ a nice Irish girl and adoptin’ a sad dog together.”

“Well regardless... I’m happy,” Charlotte breathed, closing her eyes and resting her head on Becky’s shoulder.

“Time to think about the next big adventure,” Becky said absently, dozing beside Charlotte with the warm weight of Buffy close to her. “Marriage, mortgages, babies... bring it on.”

“In that order?”

“Dunno, depends if I knock you up unexpectedly,” Becky joked, and Charlotte shoved her.

“I don’t foresee immaculate conception in our future,” Charlotte said with a snort. Becky laced her fingers through Charlotte’s.

“Neither do I. But with everything else... let’s see where life takes us,” Becky said cautiously. “I feel like next year is gonna be big for us.”

Charlotte nodded, absently scratching Buffy’s ears with her free hand, resting her head on Becky’s shoulder. Becky suppressed a smile, thinking of the little velvet box hidden in the very back of her wardrobe where Charlotte wouldn’t find it. Who knew when she’d finally propose; she’d only been trying to figure it out for the last year, but something about the presence of the little dog dozing between them emboldened her. Buffy was a promise to each other in her own right; they’d promised to love her, to give her a home together, and they had fallen for her absolutely. Buffy rolled onto her back with a piggy snort, legs akimbo, clearly looking for belly rubs.

“Right now, though,” Charlotte said softly, reaching out obligingly and giving Buffy’s belly a rub. “Right now is perfect.”

“Yeah,” Becky replied, ruffling Charlotte’s hair. “Right now is perfect.”


End file.
